Born in Kentucky, Tara Conner began winning pageants at a young age. She was Miss Kentucky Teen USA 2002 and Miss Kentucky County Fair 2004. Later, she was crowned Miss USA 2006. In late 2006, Conner became the center of a major public scandal after she was caught drinking underage, using cocaine, and kissing Miss Teen USA Katie Blair at a New York nightclub. Rather than stripping her of her title, pageant owner Donald Trump gave her the option of entering a drug rehabilitation program. Since completing that program, Tara Conner has become a recovery advocate, working with Facing Addiction on prevention efforts and Transforming Youth Recovery. Relating the story of how Donald Trump came through for her in 2006, she found herself being used to vouch for the president’s recovery efforts. But does her expression of gratitude for Trump’s past actions imply a wholehearted backing of today’s presidential policies?
In 2006, reports of your underage drinking, drug abuse, and sexual indiscretions put you in danger of losing your Miss USA crown. Can you tell us more about what happened and what led you on this dangerous path?
What led me to that path is the same thing that led most adolescents to that path. I think a lot of people have the wrong picture in their head. They thought I won Miss USA, and I moved to New York City from a small town in Kentucky, and I got caught up in all of this wild big city stuff, but that’s far from the truth. The truth is that my addiction started when I was 14 years old. I was caught in the perfect storm of elements for addiction to manifest—family history, abuse, trauma. The truth looks different than what people expect the stories to look like, and I see this perception gap over and over again. People try to find masks to cover their pain. For me, they came in the form of a sash and a crown. That was my way of protecting my disease without even knowing it. It was my way of saying to everyone trying to get a piece of me, “I’m good. I’m doing good. Now stay in your lane and leave me alone.”
After testing positive for cocaine eight months after your win, pageant owner Donald Trump allowed you to keep your title if you agreed to enter rehab. Can you tell us about this meeting and his offer?
I had a press conference about a week after my failed drug test had leaked. I believe the options presented were to resign and go on my own or to resign and go to treatment. At first, there didn’t seem to be any option where I could keep the title. I didn’t really believe there was any chance that I would be able to keep it. When I met Donald Trump in his office, he was saying things like, “You’re going out to clubs all the time. You’re dancing on tables and kissing girls. What the heck are you thinking?” I actually never danced on tables. I did kiss girls, but I wanted to so like, whatever. He asked me, “What am I supposed to do about this?”
We need to [put] this in the proper perspective. Donald Trump is not a drinker. He’s never been any type of user, but his brother died of alcoholism. When he was asking me what am I supposed to do, I think part of my response was divinely inspired and part of it was my manipulation as an addict. I said, “I think it will say far more about your organization and far more about your character if you give me a second chance and you allow me to make this right.”
I didn’t know what that was going to look like, but I know that he immediately liked the idea. We go down to the press conference, and he was very supportive. During that entire time, he was never angry and he was never mean. He listened. He truly did listen. In fact, he called me a few times. He always called at like 6 AM in the morning. It was so early.
I guess there wasn’t any Twitter to distract his attention at that time.
Right, but he did seem genuinely concerned. He was like, “Well, I’m hearing this and that, and I don’t know what to do. You’ve put me in a tight spot.” All I could say in reply was, “I get it. I totally understand.” We went back and forth for a while. It wasn’t like one of those things where I went to his office one day, and we had a chat. He definitely was more hands on than I’ve given him credit for in the past.
During the press conference, he said, “She’s obviously an alcoholic and she needs help. She needs to go to treatment.” At the time, I didn’t understand what being an alcoholic meant. I actually remember saying that I didn’t really think that I was an alcoholic and that was pushing the envelope a little bit too far. Nonetheless, I was willing to do whatever it took. It wasn’t because I was trying to be a good person. It was just because I was trying to get my ass out of the fire that was consuming me.
I was taught from a young age everything had to look good on the outside. My pride and ego kept me sober for a long time because I had to prove to you that I wasn’t the asshole that you thought I was. It turns out that what happened was exactly what I needed. I needed that public humiliation and the dumping of all of my skeletons out of the closet. At that point, I couldn’t defend my disease anymore.
Long before he was President, Donald Trump decided to help you. He said, “I’ve always been a believer in second chances. Tara is a good person. Tara has tried hard. Tara is going to be given a second chance.”
Do you believe in second chances across the board? Does everyone experiencing a substance use disorder crisis deserve a second chance?
Here’s the deal: When someone’s willing to get treatment for a substance use disorder, I do believe that they should have the option. Sometimes I think people need to hit a bottom before they are ready to take that step. Initially, my getting a second chance was just my way of trying to get my ass out of the fire. In treatment, I learned about alcoholism, and I was open to learning. For a lot of people, however, they won’t get sober until they have more negative experiences. Many people are like, “Oh, I got a DUI and I’m sorry. I promise it’ll never happen again.” But you need to show the change through your actions. When someone is at the point where they say, “I have an open mind and I’m willing to do something different,” they should be given that option. Willingness is the first step.
It’s kind of like the saying in many of the 12-step programs, “You can carry the message, but you can’t carry the addict or the alcoholic.”
I’ve had many sponsees, girls that I’ve worked with, who were not willing to hear the message. There’s nothing anyone can do if you’re not willing to take direction. I work a very hard program, which I truthfully didn’t start doing until about a year and a half ago. At first, I didn’t understand what it was to be powerless or that my life was unmanageable. I thought I was powerless because I couldn’t drink and my life was unmanageable because I slept with people that I didn’t want to sleep with. I didn’t understand that when I use drugs or alcohol my mind and my body separate. My mind can tell me it’s a bad idea, but my body is off and running. Once it’s off and running, I can’t stop it. Powerlessness and unmanageability lived within me before I ever took a drink or a drug. For me, unmanageability means that I’m prey to misery and depression, I can’t control my emotional nature, and I have trouble with personal relationships.
I think there’s a misconception that alcohol turns the alcoholic into a tornado, but in truth the suffering started long before I ever took my first drink. When I work with girls who don’t want to take direction because their mind tells them they have a better idea, then I let go of the outcome. I say, “Great! Go do what you want to do and let me know what happens later.”
I don’t tell people how to live their lives. I don’t tell them who they can date. I don’t tell them who they can have sex with. I don’t tell them anything because I’m not God. If they need to have that experience, that’s what they are going to do. I am very clear about establishing those boundaries. All I knew at the beginning was that I was suffering. I was desperate and I was willing to do whatever it took. People often need to have that experience of desperation. Treatment’s really great for getting people separated from their disease for a moment and providing knowledge about the disease in a sort of academic fashion…but that’s only a short breather. That self-knowledge is not going to keep you sober.
On the OWN Show, you said, “When he sent me to treatment, it was a huge step forward for the recovery movement.” I understand how it was a huge step forward for your own recovery; however, can you further explain how it was a huge step forward for the recovery movement as a whole?
When I was sent to treatment, Donald Trump was practicing inclusion in the workplace. When I could have been fired due to a morality clause, I wasn’t fired because he saw something in me that maybe even the Miss Universe organization didn’t see. All they saw was this pain-in-the-ass girl who lied a lot, was very inconsistent, and could barely put two sentences together. They were tired of it. Because he’s been directly affected by alcoholism and addiction, he could see a little deeper than that.
You have to realize that here was a man who was famous at the time for the classic catch phrase, “You’re fired! You’re fired! You’re fired!” That was the headline in newspapers around the country: Is she going to get fired for what she has done? And I wasn’t a bad person who was trying to act good. I said this in my TED Talk, and I have always made this point. To my core, my choices were always positive. I just didn’t have the strength to follow through with those decisions. I also didn’t know that I was suffering from a disease that affected my mind, my body, and my spirit. This disease prevented me from being the best version of myself.
When Trump sent me to treatment, what that showed was that this problem can be fixed. There is help out there, and this person has the ability to change. Instead of throwing the hot mess that was now Miss USA onto the street to fend for herself, I was given a chance by being given an option. I happily took that option. I said, “Absolutely, I’ll go to treatment. Whatever you need me to do.” I had hit my bottom, and I was willing to do what was necessary to get well again.
At that time, the idea of recovery was being ignored in the media. In my case, I was like twenty years old and it didn’t seem like such a big deal, but I think it helped reveal the humanity behind addiction to many people. I think they saw the struggle behind the headlines. Maybe we can help her if she’s given a second chance. If she falls down after that help, then that’s on her, but let’s give her a shot. Donald Trump gave me the option, and I took it. Thank God! Thank God I took it because it changed my life.
It was a huge step forward for the recovery movement because it was so well-publicized. My anonymity was out the window, but my story was on the table and I believe that ended up helping so many other people and continues to help people find recovery. I wasn’t embarrassed and I wasn’t ashamed because my twenty-year old brain was so excited to have found a passion and a path. What was huge for the recovery movement was all the young girls who saw Miss USA go through something terrible, but they also saw her get help. It showed them that help was out there.
In a People magazine article, you said, “I like to do a lot of work in prevention, focusing on adolescence, because that’s where this starts… I think a lot of people search for a purpose their entire life and never find one, and I had one fall in my lap.”
Can you describe the prevention efforts that you have been involved with? Moving forward, what do you hope to accomplish in this field?
In this field, there’s so much that I hope to do. There’s a grassroots organization called Transforming Youth Recovery that’s doing a lot of really positive work right now by helping to fund sober high schools and collegiate recovery programs. I am helping them with an extended study in Reno, Nevada about a K -12 prevention program. What I would love to see happen is a shift in prevention efforts towards raising awareness among younger kids. I think it could have helped me if I had been made aware of the dangers when I was 12 or 13. I have spoken at many schools in sobriety, and it’s often been frustrating. They tell me, “Please don’t mention this or that because we don’t have the resources to deal with those issues.”
Kids, however, know so much more today than they did ten or fifteen years ago. Parents need to stop pretending to have a blind eye and saying that we don’t have that problem here. Prevention can’t be about saving face. You can’t only talk about the dangers of drugs and alcohol in the weeks leading up to the local prom. A bigger problem is the focus on juniors and seniors. That’s too late to stop the problem. Juniors and seniors are not open to hearing the message. They’ve already made a choice. Parents and schools need to be focusing on kids when they’re 11 and 12 and 13. Fifth graders are much more willing to listen and learn. Fifth graders are not afraid of saying something embarrassing because they don’t even know it’s embarrassing yet.
We have sheltered ourselves into a place where speaking the truth is frowned upon. I didn’t know that by having my first drink at 14, it was going to make me forty percent more likely to become dependent on alcohol. I didn’t know my brain was going through rapid development. I didn’t know that I lacked the ability at that age to make clear, concise decisions because that part of my brain had yet to develop. My story is a cautionary tale, but it also helps wake people up. The truth is what reaches people. If it pisses them off, that’s good. It means it’s touching a part of them where something needs to be examined. I like to make people uncomfortable. I like to piss them off. I like to make guidance counselors roll their eyes because [I’m] talking about being molested as a child and dealing with date rape because of drug abuse and freely speaking [my] naked truth. This is what they need to hear.
At the end, they’re often in tears because they experienced the exact same stuff in their own lives — they have been touched by the same trauma. I’m all about opening up Pandora’s Box because that open line of communication can end up saving lives in the long run. Rather than being overcome with the fear of being shamed or suspended, these kids need to know that they can open up and get help. Prevention is so important because ninety percent of addiction starts in adolescence when these kids are so very vulnerable. I also work with a nonprofit called the National Addiction Foundation that is a great resource for families and loved ones of addicts and alcoholics. It’s kind of like a one-stop shop for recovery help.
As a recovery advocate, you are a proponent of the disease model of addiction. In a blog on your website, you write, “There is a NASTY stigma attached to addiction and alcoholism. I feel that people hear so much of the bad, that there really isn’t room for people to see the good.”
Don’t you think efforts to overcome the stigma need to be backed by government support? If funding is not maintained and the efforts aren’t supported, won’t the negative stigma remain in place?
It absolutely remains in place. That’s why I recently went on Fox & Friends to try to encourage President Trump to think about it. I’ve sent him emails and I’ve done what I can to contact him, but the problem is a lack of understanding. Insurance companies for the most part won’t even honor the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act. Rather than make the law respected, President Trump wants to put more money into criminalization and building walls. What he doesn’t understand is that long-term recovery works, and there’s a positive return on that investment. Prevention and treatment are the best ways to battle the problem. As a businessman, I hope the president will look at the facts and see that investing in recovery makes good financial sense. Everyone focuses on how I said he saved my life, but they are ignoring my steadfast belief in prevention and treatment efforts.
Look, people are dying! People are dying every day from this disease. I understand how they feel that a grown man who kills a mother and a daughter in a drunk driving accident is a bad person. It does not surprise me that they don’t have sympathy for a junkie overdosing on skid row because they believe that he chose that life. But when young kids in their teens are overdosing day in and day out, there’s clearly something wrong with the bigger picture. That’s so tragic. I wonder whose kid needs to die before the eyes of President Trump are opened to this tragedy. Is it a specific person? What do we need to do in order for people to recognize this as the extreme healthcare crisis that it has become: This is our black plague. Somebody needs to talk about the solution before it’s too late.
I have been working as an advocate with the group Facing Addiction, and their Letter to the President to support recovery solutions is really important. People should read it, then hopefully add their name by signing it. We have to stop focusing on all the bad shit that happens and start focusing on the positive. I have been doing this work for over a decade and beating my head against walls. Now they want to build another wall. The letter helps highlight the better options. Let’s invest in people that need recovery, let’s invest in our veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorders and keep our promise to them, let’s reduce the suicide rate and raise the recovery rate. Instead of building more walls, let’s invest in recovery and in prevention. The government should provide the backing needed to save lives. Let’s invest in long-term recovery and not these seven-day detoxes. Let’s give people the opportunity to get well.
You are a Kentucky native, and your home state has been hit hard by the opioid epidemic, prescription pill mills, and crystal meth abuse. Impoverished people of all races, religions, and creeds have been affected with many becoming victims of overdose and addiction-related diseases like hepatitis C and HIV. Many experts believe the cutting of Medicaid and Medicare in President Trump’s new healthcare plan will disproportionately affect those people.
How would you explain such choices to the citizens of your financially depleted home state who are in desperate need of federal support?
Let me be perfectly clear: Just because I have expressed gratitude for what he did for me and just because I have encouraged President Trump to do the right thing does not make me a Trump supporter. This is a failure in perception in relation to the recent press I received. If the cuts that he’s discussing come about, I am going to raise absolute fucking hell.
I come from a place where there was a profound lack of recovery resources. I have seen the effects on my own family. My cousin is in jail because he was convicted of his third DUI and he almost died, but he still can’t get into treatment. How does that make any sense? I am trying to find ways to get him into a year-long program because he desperately needs it, but when I find a place that will take him it ends up being rejected by the court system. The court says in response, “He can’t go there because it’s not on our official list, so we’re just going to let him rot in jail.” If you’re an addict or an alcoholic, you already are in the prison of your own mind. You don’t need any more bars of any kind. You need recovery. It’s terrible when a person that needs help, particularly a loved one, is not allowed to go to a good rehab facility because the court won’t allow it.
When you have a mental problem or a substance use disorder and you are willing to ask for help, you should be given help right away. You need it right away. This is why people are dying, and this is why I will raise absolute hell if a bad situation is made even worse. This is my purpose, and this is why I do what I do. I see too many people needlessly suffering. I see people like me – these tiny little soldiers fighting what feels like an impossible fight across the country. We are rolling around and trying to help people in any way that we can and trying to find beds, but we are coming up against walls and dead ends and difficulties time and time again. It’s so tragic, and it just brings tears to my eyes. When I say that I support President Trump’s success in these efforts, I don’t mean that I support what he says he’s going to do right now. I mean I support the hope that he’ll end up doing the right thing and really be there for the people that need his help. If you fail to help those people, you are killing our country.
The Affordable Care Act was the first time that coverage for the treatment of substance use disorder and alcohol use disorder was a requirement for insurance providers. Such treatment will no longer will be available if the ACA is repealed. What do you think of the President’s now failed plan to repeal ACA and his failed intention to no longer provide coverage for substance use disorder and other forms of mental illness?
I am completely against it because it doesn’t make sense. That’s like saying that cancer is covered now, but we no longer really think it’s much of a problem, so we’re not going to cover treatment for it anymore. Can you imagine the reaction if they said something like that? It absolutely was a step in the right direction, although there was a lack of accountability when it came to many of the insurance companies. If the ACA had been repealed, it would have made my job a lot harder.
I was treated for depression and anxiety disorder this past year. I have been suffering for thirty-one years, and I didn’t know. For the first time, after a proper assessment and receiving the medication I probably always needed, I feel like a human being. I’m like, “Whoa, is this how people are supposed to feel?” There have been times in sobriety where I have felt suicidal. I don’t want to die, but the sweet release of death sounds great. If someone in my circumstances can feel that way, I can’t imagine what it must be like for someone who served in Iraq or Afghanistan or who has been in the line of fire anywhere. The pain of that kind of post-traumatic stress disorder must be so terrible to bear. What’s it like for them not to be able to get a bed in a treatment facility because they are drinking their face off? The brain is a part of the body, and treatment for mental health disorders should be an inherent right for all Americans.
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has been at the forefront of the federal efforts to stem the current drug crisis, particularly the opioid epidemic. President Trump has stated that he wants to abolish the ONDCP. Do you think this is a good decision? Do you think the White House should have an active voice in establishing drug policy and promoting educational, prevention and treatment efforts?
Look, Trump is taking away a lot of things that I think should be mandatory. I thought Michael Botticelli was doing a great job as ONDCP Director. The people in those positions should have experience with recovery, and they should remain at their positions for longer periods of time. Removing them when they are in the middle of dealing with such a huge national crisis really doesn’t make a lot of sense. Since this specific field is so misunderstood and so stigmatized, if we don’t have the right people in charge or if we take away that position of tremendous public impact, who’s going to speak for the voiceless, except Tara Conner who put blow up her nose and danced on tables? I try hard, but we need to do it together as a unified team. There needs to be more, not less.
A problem is that many of the people who voted for Trump came from counties where the heroin epidemic and crystal meth abuse remain out of control. They liked the idea of having a tough talking law and order president. He made a lot of promises during the election. The problem is that you’re saying one thing and people are voting for you, having faith in what you say you’re going to do, but then you’re just going to retract it and turn your back on those promises. I watch the news every day, and it makes me want to throw up. I encourage everyone that has suffered with addiction or been affected by addiction in their families to speak up. If you are reading this interview right now, please blow up the phones. Your voice needs to be heard, so please do something. We all need to come together and raise some hell.
During the presidential campaign, the revelation of President Trump’s sexist comments disturbed many women. How did it affect you?
Well, obviously, it was disturbing. As a human being and as a woman, I don’t think anyone should face such disrespect, especially in any kind of degrading or sexually aggressive way. I don’t believe in the bullshit excuse of locker room talk. I don’t believe in any of that. It’s also important for me to say that I never experienced any of that personally with him. I do hope the women that were affected can find peace and closure. I don’t think anyone should have to go through what they said they went through. I don’t ultimately know the truth, but I don’t see any reason why so many women would lie about such awful things. From one experience, I learned that there’s something to be said for owning your part if something has happened. Once you own it, then you have the opportunity to change.
